West Ham plans will seal London Stadium’s fate as Premier League’s soulless bowl. West Ham and Newham Council are about to hammer the final nail into the coffin for the London Stadium.
It is a struggle for West Ham to get an atmosphere going at the London Stadium at the best of times. So it stands to reason it has lived up to its reputation as one of the worst grounds in the Premier League during a dismal year for the Hammers.
The calendar year of 2024 was a disaster for West Ham under David Moyes and Julen Lopetegui. It has left the club with little but pride to play for in the last three months of the season.
Things have picked up under Graham Potter but the lack of jeopardy is reflected by the deathly quiet atmosphere at games. West Ham may have one of the biggest stadiums in the country, but it’s not without its problems.
One of the major grievances for Hammers fans about the ground has always been the distances between the upper and lower tiers in places and from the terraces to the pitch.
West Ham plans final nail in coffin for London Stadium. Is it any wonder given they have gone from Upton Park, where supporters were almost on top of the players on the pitch, to the bowl-shaped former Olympic Stadium.
Since moving to Stratford, there has been in-fighting, pitch invasions and protests with the stadium the issue at the heart of all the problems.
The biggest shift has been the atmosphere. It has taken years of adjustment and the atmosphere has suffered.
There have been some electric nights for West Ham at the London Stadium. But they are few and far between with popcorn, opposition fans and tourists an unwelcome fixture at the stadium.
One section of the stadium that did generate a decent atmosphere was 112 – next to away fans, who regularly vote the London Stadium as the worst ground they visit.
But as anchor tenants and not owners, West Ham could do little to stop the ridiculous installation of a giant wall between opposing supporters – killing the back and forth between them. Now West Ham’s plans will be final nail in coffin for the soulless bowl that is the London Stadium.
London Stadium’s fate sealed as Premier League’s soulless bowl
Minutes from the latest meeting of the London Stadium Safety Advisory Group reveal West Ham are “actively collaborating” with them to clampdown on all areas of the ground where there is persistent standing.
There are large areas of the stadium where Hammers fans stand – as most away supporters do too. It directly results in those areas being the best for generating atmosphere.
In fact they are the only sections of the ground that generate any semblance of noise during West Ham matches. Now West Ham are committing to measures aimed at ‘eliminating the behaviour’ of persistent standing.
A new video, used alongside on-the-ground teams telling people to sit down, reminds fans to remain seated throughout the game.
The SGSA point out that the stadium holds an all-seater license for football, with the Safety Certificate requiring all areas of the London Stadium to remain under control.
The SGSA praised the positive efforts by the working group in continually working towards tackling persistent standing and encouraged continued collaboration, especially around the lower tiers and block 217. As if the London Stadium wasn’t bad enough already, now the last remaining noisy sections will be sat down into silence.
Quite how they intend to forcibly make thousands of West Ham fans stay sitting down is anyone’s guess. One thing is for certain, if the Hammers really push this they will risk antagonising an already irked fanbase.
The London Stadium is already over sanitised. This could be the death knell for a ground that many WestHam fans feel isn’t fit for football.
